Maude’s Carson Center Care Coordinator had a point. Even though she was mad as all get-out at that Department of Children and Families’ Social Worker, it wasn’t helping her get her kids back when she threatened to cut his legs off with her chainsaw. In private, Maude asked herself, “Where did that come from?” Maude wasn’t a violent woman.
Things felt unfair to Maude. DCF took her kids away because her boyfriend had broken her nose in front of them and she refused to kick him out. The house they were living in was owned by his mother; his brother lived next door—his other brother was a police officer. Where was she going to go? If she got a restraining order, how much was that piece of paper going to protect her? How would she feed the kids?
The foster mother who had her kids drove her nuts. She fed her son and daughter “gluten free pancakes.”
Have you ever had that stuff? It tastes like wet cardboard. And DCF thought SHE wasn’t a fit mother? The ladies in the Carson Healing Alliance Support Group laughed with her whenever she spoke about the cardboard pancakes. They knew how she felt. It was a support group for women healing from domestic violence. The Carson Domestic Violence Advocate who ran the support group helped each woman see what strength she’d held onto, but also how she’d changed over the years dealing with all the nonsense they had to deal with. Maude never drank before living with Todd. It was the only thing that would take the edge off after a day worrying about what he might do or say. And now she had a service plan from DCF that said she also had to get help for her drinking before she could get the kids home.
Maude’s Care Coordinator asked her about bringing her therapist to a Care Coordination meeting. Maude was worried about all these people getting together—the DCF guy, the kids’ school counselor, the In Home Therapist, her therapist, even her domestic violence advocate. They could gang up on her and make this nightmare worse. But the Care Coordinator told her that she’d only invite who Maude wanted there, and that Maude would set the agenda.
The meeting was nothing like she expected. It was hard to remember anything other than when the school counselor and the In Home Therapist talked about how much the kids wanted to come home to Maude. It’d been almost two years at the foster home. The visits were going well;? their therapy was going well. The counselor said, “These are good kids. They are happy, polite and so sweet and creative. In spite of everything Maude had to put up with, she did a really good job with them. They want to come home.” The In-Home Therapist said, “The visits are going well? their school work is great. It’s really time for the next step.” Maude’s eyes burned with tears and her throat swelled with anguish and the thought that the pain of separation might soon be over. Maude’s therapist jumped in and said she was really happy with the skills Maude had learned that helped Maude to manage her feelings now that she wasn’t coping by drinking anymore. With Maude’s permission, the Domestic Violence advocate had called the DCF worker and let him know that Maude was attending every support group and working with her individually. She’d found housing and was receiving benefits, just as the service plan recommended. It was at this meeting the DCF worker said he’d recommend to his supervisor that they move forward on reunification.
It was two months after the reunification when she was talking with her Carson therapist that Maude realized how it was that seeing her two irreplaceable children taken by their hands out of her home that bloodied night so long ago had cut the legs of her life out from under her. And how this whole team had helped her stand again, without Todd, without alcohol, and with her children by her side.
By JAC Patrissi
